Everybody don your suit jackets and wide lapelled shirts and sing with me now: celebrants, good times, come on!
Sure, they may not have been Kool and The Gang’s exact words, but I like to think they’d have approved of the message.
But what are wedding celebrants? Why is a celebrant-led wedding ceremony different? Why might it be something for you? And what are the alternatives? These are all exceptional questions, and ones I shall answer right about now.
What are wedding celebrants?
Celebrants are people who lead ceremonies, so wedding celebrants are, as they say on the tin, people who lead wedding ceremonies.
Generally, the word celebrant refers to someone who doesn’t have a religious job or affiliation. The two main types of celebrant in the UK are humanist celebrants, who are accredited by Humanists UK, and independent celebrants, who aren’t tied to any organisation.
You pick your own celebrant, which is different to what happens with a registrar at a legal ceremony; you can hand-pick someone who gets you and will make the ceremony exactly what you want it to be.
How are registrants different?
Registrars are government employees whose weddings are assigned to them. You could get lucky and get someone who really, really cares, who will send you the script they’re going to use in advance and let you give your feedback; but you could also get a grumpy old bureaucrat who wants to get your wedding over and done with so he can move onto the next one.
How are priests different?
If you’re having a Christian wedding ceremony, you can choose your pastor or priest (to a certain extent), which can make it a lot more meaningful, even if you’re just a Christmas-and-Easter kind of churchgoer.
What does a celebrant-led wedding ceremony look like?
A good guiding principle for whether a celebrant is right for you is: what would your dream ceremony look like?
If you want the utmost flexibility with your ceremony, a wedding celebrant is probably a good option, as there’s very few constraints. A wedding ceremony led by a celebrant can look, feel, sound, smell, and taste just like you two as a couple, with little to no external requirements. The legal wording required in Scotland and Northern Ireland is fairly minimal.
Celebrant-led wedding ceremonies can be riotous, wall-to-wall laughter and fun, or they can be more reverant; it’s however you’d rather spend your day. You can play around with your readings, your vows, your songs, your audience participation – basically, you can include whatever you want, whether it’s beer bingo, random brass players interspersed amongst your guests a la Love Actually, or your dog as your ringbearer, and get rid of any of the bits you don’t want.
How are registrars different?
You do still have some flexibility with registrars, but they are more bound with legal requirements. There are certain things they have to say, including a clunky introduction of themselves and their job titles. (which is longer than you’d think!)
You can’t have any religious readings or music – not even a love song that mentions the word ‘God’ – and you’ll need to send them your readings and music for approval to make sure of that.
There are super strict rules about alcohol at legal ceremonies, so you’ll have to save that for later if you’re going down this route.
However, you can still get your guests involved in readings, songs, and ring blessings. And, if you want to say your own vows, you can – but you have to use the legal wording first, so you are giving vows twice.
How are priests different?
I’m sure we all know what a religious ceremony looks like – regardless of who or where or what, the ceremony script is pretty watertight in religious ceremonies, with little room for personalisation. (Including vows!)
Where can a celebrant-led wedding ceremony take place?
Celebrant-led weddings can be held wherever you want, including outdoors.
English and Welsh ceremonies currently need to be held in a licensed venue to be legal – and therefore can’t be held outdoors – but Humanist and independent-led ceremonies can be out in the open air, and are legal in Scotland and Nothern Ireland, too.
You can also hold your ceremony in a non-traditional wedding venue; maybe the school you met at, or the bar in which you spent many hazy dates. You just have to get the venue’s permission, of course – don’t just turn up on the day and surprise them…
How are registrars different?
Registrars can only lead ceremonies in licensed venues, which could be your local registry office or town hall (a lot of them are surprisingly gorgeous) or a hotel, for example.
How are priests different?
Though obvious on the surface, religious ceremonies are a tad trickier.
There are certain restrictions on which church you can have your ceremony in, depending on where you live and what your connection to the church is, for example if your parents got married there or you were baptised there. These differ depending on which body the church belongs to.
Some religious ceremonies also have certain restrictions in place when couples don’t both practice the same faith.
So how does the legal bit of weddings work?
Humanist celebrants are able to legally marry people in Scotland and Northern Ireland but currently not in England or Wales. Hopefully, this will soon change, but what do you do if you want to be legally married in the meantime?
A lot of couples whose ‘big’/’main’/’symbolic’ wedding (delete words as appropriate to you here) isn’t legally binding will have the legal ceremony a couple of days before. Double the weddings, double the fun!
However, if you feel the date on the paperwork matching the date on your invites is important to you – and it feels that it’s much more than just rubber stamping – you might want to clear time to go to the office in the morning with a few witnesses.
Where can I find my wedding celebrant?
At the front of your ceremony, silly! No, in all seriousness, the Humanists UK’s online celebrant directory is a really good place to start, or – if you’re in or around London – check out our recommendations on our list of the 37 best wedding suppliers.
Picking a celebrant is a really integral part to your ceremony; you want to make sure you pick someone who gets you. The same way you should pick a photographer who you feel comfortable with, your celebrant should be someone who’d be on the guest list if they weren’t leading the ceremony, because you get on so well.
You should be able to trust your celebrant will lead the day in the way you want, and feel comfortable in communicating this vision in advance. I’d recommend getting to know your celebrant, whether this is just getting a feel for them on social media, chatting over email, or on a video call – that way, you can gauge whether they’re the right person to take your love story on.
